Git how to undo merge
Git how to undo merge
How to Undo Git Merge
Sometimes, you want to undo the merge operation no matter it has happened because of the merge command, the pull command or something else. Here, we will consider several options of undoing merge in Git.
How to Undo a Merge with Conflicts
In case conflicts occurred after calling the merge command, then you can undo the whole process by using the command below:
How to Undo an Unpushed Merge Commit
One of the useful ways of undoing a git merge is to run git reset command. Using this method will help you keep all the local changes you have made. It moves the last commit you made before the merge took place. To run this command, you should act like this:
As an alternative, you can find the appropriate hash of the merge commit by running the git log command. After that, you need to put the hash into the following command:
As you can see, this is a perfect method to clean up your merge, saving the local changes at the same time. Anyway, it is not free of drawbacks. In case your local branch is behind the remote branch with any commit quantity, don’t expect absolute results from this method. While using this method, you should consider another scenario, as well. For example, your Git history might be rewritten, and it can become hard for other programmers of your team to track the changes of the remote repository.
How to Undo a Pushed Merge Commit
Undoing with the git reset command
In the framework of this approach, you need to reset the merge commit as it is mentioned in the section above, then run the command below:
Undoing with the git revert command
If you don’t want to make difficulties for the developers working in parallel, then you can use the git revert command. To do that, you need to find the appropriate hash of the merge commit using the git log command. Then, you should put the hash into the command below:
Returning the Reverted Changes
Primary usage of Git Merge
Git merge is primarily aimed at combining two branches. You can also use it for merging several commits into a single history. Merge commits are considered unique for having two parent commits. Separate histories are merged automatically by Git anytime a new merge commit is produced. But it will not be combining the data that was changed in the histories.
Git Undo Merge – How to Revert the Last Merge Commit in Git
Branching is an integral part of Git because it lets you work without tampering with code that’s already in production.
But what if you finish merging and realize you forgot to do one more thing? Or what if you accidentally merge when you are not ready to?
You can undo almost anything in Git. So, in this article, I will show you how to undo a merge in Git so you can revert to the last commit you made.
How to Undo a Merge Commit in Git
You can use the Git reset command to undo a merge.
Firstly, you need to check for the commit hash (or id) so you can use it to go back to the previous commit.
You should see some things get removed from your code editor when you run the command.
1 to go back to the commit before the merge: 
A Better Way to Undo a Merge in Git
1 : 
Conclusion
In this article, you learned how to undo a merge in Git, so you can undo a mistaken or unwanted merge and work more efficiently with Git.
Thank you for reading!
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How to Undo or revert a Merge in Git [Tutorial]
Last Updated On August 13, 2021 By Khizer Ali
Git revert merge: While working on projects and managing them on Version Control Systems like Git, occasionally you can get yourself into situations where you merge your changes, commit them, and even push them together to the remote repository, but after doing that, you realize that this recent merge had an issue with it.
In such a case, you will likely find a way to get your main branch back to its stable state. This is where you need to undo or revert your merge in Git.
There are two states where this problem can be handled:
If your case falls in the first category, you can revert the merge with the following command:
This way, Git will clean up everything for you and will nicely abort your merge commit. Thus, the branch will get back to its previous stable state.
However, if you have already committed your merge, then there is no restoring point. The only solution is to revert the merging commit. Let’s see how you can do it.
Table of Contents
Revert Merge After Committing
Step#01: Get Out of the Main Branch
The first step is to get yourself out of the branch affected by the commit since this is the branch that will be under a few changes now.
Use the following command to get yourself out of the branch:
Step#02: Find the Last Commit Hash Number
Step#03: Revert the Traced Commit
Finally, you have the hash number of the commit message in which you made the wrong merge. Use the following command to undo it.
Let’s understand this command. Here:
Conclusion
Reverting your Git merges is a messy, confusing and unclear thing. It results in generating unclear Git history and disturbs the workflow. When your project development increases with time, it becomes more difficult to manage these issues, and every developer wants to avoid such a situation.
But in case you are trapped with the issue, follow this guide, and hopefully, you will be able to resolve the error.
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Undo last commit/merge
I have messed up my git repo a little. I worked on a feature in a separate branch. After finishing the work, I switched to the master to merge it into, but my partner pushed a few files which came into conflict with mine. After the merge, the conflict and pushing the new changes, I saw that I committed the older changes of my partner too.
Can anyone help me?
4 Answers 4
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Your feature branch will still point to your work. You will not lose those changes.
As plaes said, you can reset master back one with
If you want to grab some specific files from your branch without merging, you can check them out:
If you want some files from master from before the merge you can also check these out:
This is not ideal but it is what is needed sometimes. A merge /may/ mean that you reject some changes from either side in a merge. The best way to attain a proper merge is to:
from master, then run the git checkout commands from above and finally commit:
When you push this branch now, you will need to add the force option
Git Undo Merge: A Guide
You can undo a Git merge using the git reset –merge command. This command changes all files that are different between your current repository and a particular commit. There is no “git undo merge” command but the git reset command works well to undo a merge.
How to Undo a Git Merge
Have you just merged two branches that you’re not ready to merge? Not to worry, Git has a solution for you. Developers merge branches all the time that should not be branched, so you’re definitely not alone in experiencing this issue.
In this tutorial, we’re going to talk about git merges and how to undo a git merge. We’ll walk through an example of two approaches you can use to undo a git merge. Let’s begin!
Git Merges
Git relies heavily on branches. These are used to maintain separate lines of development inside a project. Branches allow you to work on multiple different versions of a repository at once. Merging combines two branches into one.
You can merge a branch into another branch whenever you are ready. This means that you can develop a feature or a bug fix on a separate branch. Then, you can make it part of your main project later.
Git Undo Merge
To undo a git merge, you need to find the commit ID of your last commit. Then, you need to use the git reset command to reset your repository to its state in that commit. There is no “git revert merge” command.
The steps to revert a merge, in order, are:
Say we have accidentally merged two branches that should not be merged. We can undo these changes.
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Undo Merge Git Example
Find the Commit ID
To start, we need to find out the commit ID of the commit before our merge on our remote repository. You can do this using git reflog:
Let’s run this command on a Git repository:
This command tells us that the last commit has the hash a9fdeb5.
Alternatively, you can use the git log command. But, the reflog command returns an output that is easier to read. This is why we opted to use reflog instead of the log command.
Revert to the Commit
We can use this hash to revert the merge commit with the git reset –merge command:
This command resets our repository to the state it was at in the a9fdeb5 commit on the master branch.
The –merge flag resets an index and updates all the files that are different between the current state of your repository and the HEAD.
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This flag does not reset files with changes that have not been added to a commit. This makes it safer than using the oft-recommended git reset –hard command.
Once we have reset our repository, we can make the relevant changes to our code. Then, we can push them to a remote branch using the git push command.
A Word on the HEAD Shorthand
The Git HEAD keyword refers to the latest commit in your repository. You can use the Git HEAD shorthand to undo a merge:
This command reverts our repository to the last commit. HEAD refers to the current state of your repository; HEAD
1 is the last commit in your repository.
This command reverts our repository to the last commit. HEAD refers to the current state of your repository; HEAD
1 is the last commit in your repository.
Conclusion
The git reset command undoes a merge. The –merge flag resets a repository but keeps files to which changes have been made that have not been added to your repository.
Are you interested in learning more about Git? Check out our How to Learn Git guide. In this guide, you’ll find advice on how to learn Git and a list of top learning resources.